Along with the price uptrend seen in the deep sea scrap segment, Turkish mills have become more interested in short sea cargoes as well. Moreover, some of them are now ready to accept some sizeable price rise.
A couple of ex-Russia short sea A3 scrap cargoes have recently been sold to Turkey’s Black Sea region at $277/mt CFR for March shipments. As compared to the previous deals reported at the end of last week, the ex-Rostov benchmark price has increased by $8/mt. No fresh deals from Romania and Bulgaria have been reported, but sources believe the sellers will try to trade their cargoes at above $270/mt CFR for HMS I/II 80:20.
Turkey’s demand for short sea cargoes has been active, partly as mills would prefer to avoid a further sizeable increase in prices for deep sea scrap. Overall, steel producers are expected to be pretty much done with their scrap bookings for March shipments in the coming 10 days or so, which will change the market balance, SteelOrbis understands. Some additional price increase for import scrap is still expected, though more and more players foresee it to be a mild one.
HMS I/II 80:20 benchmark prices are currently settled at $279.5/mt CFR ex-US, $276-279/mt CFR ex-Baltic region and at $273-276/mt CFR ex-EU.
